翻译名家译作举例-Pound(2)

《长干行》李白
妾发初覆额，折花门前剧。

郎骑竹马来，绕床弄青梅。

同居长干里，两小无嫌猜。

十四为君妇，羞颜未尝开。

低头向暗壁，千唤不一回。

十五始展眉，愿同尘与灰。

常存抱柱信，岂上望夫台。

十六君远行，瞿塘滟滪堆。

五月不可触，猿声天上哀。

门前迟行迹，一一生绿苔。

苔深不能扫，落叶秋风早。

八月蝴蝶来，双飞西园草。

感此伤妾心，坐愁红颜老。

早晚下三巴，预将书报家。

The River-Merchant's Wife: a Letter
1 While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
2 I played about the front gate, pulling flowers
3 You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
4 You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums
5 And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
6 Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
7 At fourteen I married My Lord you.
8 I never laughed, being bashful.
9 Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
10 Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
11 At fifteen I stopped scowling,
12 I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
13 Forever and forever, and forever.
14 Why should I climb the look out?
15 At sixteen you departed,
16 You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
17 And you have been gone five months.
18 The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
19 You dragged your feet when you went out.
20 By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
21 Too deep to clear them away!
22 The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
23 The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
24 Over the grass in the West garden,
25 They hurt me.
26 I grow older,
27 If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
28 Please let me know beforehand,
29 And I will come out to meet you,
30 As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
Tr. by Ezra Pound
A letter from Chang-kan (A river-merchant’s wife writes) I would play, plucking flowers by the gate;
My hair scarcely covered my forehead, then.
You would come, riding on your bamboo horse,
And loiter about the bench with green plums for toys.
So we both dwelt in Chang-kan town,
We were two children, suspecting nothing.
At fourteen I became your wife,
And so bashful that I could never bare my face,
But hung my head, and turned to the dark wall;
You would call me a thousand times,
But I could not look back even once.
At fifteen I was able to compose my eyebrows,
And beg you to love me till we were dust and ashes.
You always kept the faith of Wei-sheng,
Who waited under the bridge, unafraid of death,
I never knew I was to climb the Hill of Wang-fu
And watch for you these many days.
I was sixteen when you went on a long journey,
Traveling beyond the Keu-Tang Gorge,
Where the giant rocks heap up the swift river,
And the rapids are not passable in May.
Did you hear the monkeys wailing
Up on the skyey height of the crags?
Note: The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" was published in 1915 in Ezra Pound's third collection of poetry, Cathay: Translations, which contains versions of Chinese poems composed from the sixteen notebooks of Ernest Fenollosa, a scholar of Chinese literature. Pound called the poems in English which resulted from the Fenollosa manuscripts "translations," but as such they are held in contempt by most scholars of Chinese language and literature. However, they have been acclaimed as "poetry" for their clarity and elegance. They are variously referred to as "translations," "interpretations," "paraphrases," and "adaptations."
Pound's study of the Fenollosa manuscripts led to his preoccupation with the Chinese ideogram (a written symbol for an idea or object) as a medium for poetry. In fact, he realized that Chinese poets had long been aware of the image as the fundamental principle for poetic composition that he himself was beginning to formulate. Pound further maintained that the poetic image did not lose anything in translation between languages nor was it bound by time, but effectively communicated through time and across cultures, accruing meaning in the process. "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter," for example, communicates with depth and poignance the human experience of sorrow at separation, the human experience of love.
Working with the literary traditions of other cultures was typical not only of Pound, but of most of his contemporaries, who were not convinced that the only culture of value was European. However, Pound's work has significance not only for its cross-cultural innovations, but for the "cross-chronological" breakthrough notion that the human response to the world links us all, so that an American in the twentieth century can share and learn from the human experience of an eighth century Chinese river-merchant's wife.
THE JEWEL STAIRS’ GRIEVANCE
The Jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.
Note: Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore she has no excuse on account of weather. Also she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.
Tr. and noted by Pound
玉阶怨
玉阶生白露，夜久侵罗袜。

却下水晶帘，玲珑望秋月。

Simplicity, reductionist poetics, understatement, language beyond metaphor
汉风诗举例：
From Lustra (1916-1917), in Ezra Pound Poems and Translations, The Library of America, 2003
LIU CH’E
The rustling of the silk is discontinued,
Dust drifts over the court-yard,
There is no sound of foot-falls, and the leaves
Scurry into heaps and lie still,
And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath them;
A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.
改写自刘彻悼念李夫人之作《落叶哀蝉曲》之前四行（明显以Giles的译文为底本）。

罗袂兮无声，玉墀兮尘生。

虚房冷而寂寞，落叶依于重局。

望彼美之女兮安得，感余心之未宁。

AFTER CH’U YUAN
I will get me to the wood
Where the gods walk garlanded in wisteria,
By the silver blue flood
move others with ivory cars.
There come forth many maidens
to gather grapes for the leopards, my friend,
For there are leopards drawing the cars.
I will walk in the glade,
I will come out of the new thicket
and accost the procession of maidens.
FAN-PIECE, FOR HER IMPERIAL LORD
O fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside.
TS’AI CHI’H
The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange-coloured rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.
ANCIENT WISDOM, RATHER COSMIC
So Shu (Chuang-tzu) dreamed,
And having dreamed that he was a bird, a bee, and a butterfly, He was uncertain why he should try to feel like anything else, Hence his contentment.
此外如Cantos 49
1 青青河畔草
green-green river side grass
2 鬱鬱園中柳
thick-thick garden in willows
3 盈盈樓上女
lovely-lovely tower on lady
4 皎皎當窗牖
bright-bright facing window
5 娥娥紅粉妝
pretty-pretty red powder makeup
6 纖纖出素手
slender-slender puts out white hand
7 昔為倡家女
Once was singing house girl
8 今為蕩子婦
Now is wanderer’s wife
9 蕩子行不歸
Wanderer travels not return
10 空床難獨守
Empty bed hard alone to keep Pound’s translation:
1 Blue, blue is the grass about the river
2 And the willows have overfilled the close garden.
3 And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her youth,
4 White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door..
5
6 Slender, she puts forth a slender hand:
7 And she was a courtesan in the old days,
8 And she has married a sot,
9 Who now goes drunkenly out
10 And leaves her too much alone.1
Waley’s version:
1 Green, green
The grass by the river-bank.
2 Thick, thick,
The willow trees in the garden.
3 Sad, sad
The lady in the tower.
4 White, white,
Sitting at the casement window.
5 Fair, fair,
Her red-powdered face.
6 Small, small,
1Ezra Pound, Cathay, reprinted in Ezra Pound, Poems and Translations (New York: The Library of America, 2003), 249–50.
She puts out her pale hand.
7 Once she was a dancing-house girl,
8 Now she is a wandering man’s wife.
9 The wandering man went, but did not return.
10 It is hard alone to keep an empty bed.2
I will not compare Pound and Waley point by point. Some of the differences are obvious. In line 1, Pound renders the color as “blue” rather than “green.” This is a tricky word in Chinese—it can mean either green or blue, or greenish blue depending on the context. When describing grass, it is green. Even Kentucky bluegrass is green, not blue. (The name blue comes from the blue bloom that the grass has in early spring.) Notice also that Waley is more precise about the location of the grass—he has it correctly on the riverbank, just not “about the river” as Pound gives it. In line 2, I am not sure how Pound arrived at his translation of “overfilled the close garden.” The reduplicative yuyu鬱鬱means “thick and dense” 華勝茂and describes the lush growth of the willows. In line 3, neither Pound’s “in the midmost of her youth” nor Waley’s “sad, sad” accurately conveys the sense of the reduplicative yingying 盈盈, which describes the woman’s “lovely bearing” 儀態美好的樣子. In line 4, the lady does not “pass the door” as in Pound, but “faces 2Arthur Waley, Chinese Poems (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1946), 57.
the window.” Waley is more accurate. Pound does not translate line 5, which describes the lady’s makeup—perhaps he thought he conveyed it by the title he supplied, “The Beautiful Toilet.” Pound does the most damage to the sense of the original in his translation of the last four lines. He makes the lady a changji 娼妓(prostitute). The word he translates as “courtesan,” chang倡, acquires that meaning only in the Tang dynasty.3In the Han period, when this poem was written, the word means entertainer
歌舞藝人. There is even less justification for Pound’s translation of dangzi 蕩子as “sot.” A dangzi is a wanderer or vagabond 辭家遠
3One of the first occurrences of changjia in the sense of prostitute might be in the Tang story ―Huo Xiaoyu zhuan‖ 霍小玉傳attributed to Jiang Fang 蔣防(9th century). At one point Huo Xiaoyu, who is a prostitute, identifies herself as a changjia: 妾本倡家，自知非匹―I am nothing but a courtesan, and I know I am not a proper match for you.‖ Robert van Gulik says that changjia in the ―Nineteen Old Poems‖ poem is ―brothel.‖ According to van Gulik, the poem ―depicts the sorrow of a girl from a brothel who was taken as a concubine by a wealthy loafer, and then deserted.‖ See Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D., with a new introduction and bibliography by Paul R. Golden (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 66. However, it is unlikely that changjia means brothel in the period when this poem was written. Wang Yunlu 王雲路in her glossary on Six Dynasty poetic vocabulary explains changjia, changren 倡人, and changqie倡妾as referring to a woman who lives alone because her husband is away 因丈夫在外而獨居的女子. See Liuchao shige yuci yanjiu 六朝詩歌語詞研究(Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999), 128–29. Professor Wang does not emphasize the entertainer role of the changjia. Ma Maoyuan 馬茂元explains it as geji 歌妓―female singer.‖ See Gushi shijiu shou tansuo 古詩十九首探索(1957; rpt. Hong Kong: Bailing chubanshe, 1972), 137. Yada Hoka 矢田博士has done a detailed study of the status of changjia in Han times and concludes that it designates a female entertainer who performed for the imperial court or a noble household. See ― ‗Xi wei changjia nü, jin wei dangzi fu‘ kao—jian lun Handai ‗changjia‘ di shiji shehui shenghuo zhuangkuang‖ “昔為倡家女，今為蕩子婦”考—兼論漢代“倡家”的實際社會生活狀況, Hechi shizhuan xuebao (Shehui kexue ban) 18.3 (1998): 24–29.
出、羈旅忘反的男子.4The Chinese original of line 9 says nothing a bout drunkenness as Pound has it. Waley’s “The wandering man went, but did not return” is exactly what the Chinese says. Waley also more accurately translates the concluding line.
4Dangzi is not necessarily a derogatory term. Wang Yunlu (Liuchao shige yuci yanjiu, 147) explains it as an appellation used by a wife for her husband who is traveling alone away from home 妻子對孤身在外的丈夫的稱呼. Anne Birrell makes the dangzi a playboy: ―Now I am a playboy‘s wife.‖ See New Songs from a Jade Terrace: An Anthology of Early Chinese Love Poetry (1982; rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), 39. This probably is reading too much into the word. Burton Watson uses a more neutral term, ―wanderer,‖ which is similar to Waley‘s
―wandering man.‖ See Chinese Lyricism: Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 23.Jean-Pierre Diény renders dangzi not as a noun but a verbal phrase: ―son époux court le monde.‖ See Les Dix-neuf Poèmes anciens, Bulletin de la Maison Franco-Japonaise, Nouvelle Série, VII.4 (Paris: Presses Universitaries de France, 1963), 11.
《采薇》
采薇采薇！薇亦作止。

曰歸曰歸！歲亦莫止。

靡室靡家，玁狁之故；不遑啟居，玁狁之故。

采薇采薇！薇亦柔止。

曰歸曰歸！心亦憂止。

憂心烈烈，載饑載渴；我戍未定，靡使歸聘。

采薇采薇！薇亦剛止。

曰歸曰歸！歲亦陽止。

王事靡盬，不遑啟處；憂心孔疚，我行不來。

彼爾維何？維常之華。

彼路斯何？君子之車。

戎車既駕，四牡業業；豈敢定居，一月三捷。

駕彼四牡，四牡骙骙；君子所依，小人所腓。

四牡翼翼，象弭魚服；豈不曰戒，玁狁孔棘。

昔我往矣，楊柳依依；今我來思，雨雪霏霏。

行道遲遲，載渴載饑；我心傷悲，莫知我哀！
Song of the Bowmen of Shu
Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots
And saying: When shall we get back to our country?
Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen,
We have no comfort because of these Mongols.
We grub the soft fern-shoots,
When anyone says "Return," the others are full of sorrow. Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty.
Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return. We grub the old fern-stalks.
We say: Will we be let to go back in October?
There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort.
Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country.
What flower has come into blossom?
Whose chariot? The General's.
Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong.
We have no rest, trhee battles a month.
By heavn, his horses are tired.
The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them.
The horses are well trained, the generals have ivory arrows and quivers ornamented with fish-skin.
The enemy is swift, we must be careful.
When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring,
We come back in the snow,
We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty,
Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief?
李白《古风》其十四
胡关饶风沙。

萧索竟终古。

木落秋草黄。

登高望戎虏。

荒城空大漠。

边邑无遗堵。

白骨横千霜。

嵯峨蔽榛莽。

借问谁凌虐。

天骄毒威武。

赫怒我圣皇。

劳师事鼙鼓。

阳和变杀气。

发卒骚中土。

三十六万人。

哀哀泪如雨。

且悲就行役。

安得营农圃。

不见征戍儿。

岂知关山苦。

( 一本此下有争锋徒死节。

秉钺皆庸竖。

战士死蒿莱。

将军获圭组。

四句)李牧今不在。

边人饲豺虎。

Lament of the Frontier Guard
1By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand,
2Lonely from the beginning of time until now!
3Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn.
4I climb the towers and towers
5 to watch out the barbarous land:
6Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert.
7There is no wall left to this village.
8Bones white with a thousand frosts,
9High heaps, covered with trees and grass;
10Who brought this to pass?
11Who has brought the flaming imperial anger?
12Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums? 13Barbarous kings.
14A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn,
15A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom,
16Three hundred and sixty thousand,
17And sorrow, sorrow like rain.
18Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning,
19Desolate, desolate fields,
20And no children of warfare upon them,
21 No longer the men for offence and defence.
22Ah, how shall you know the dreary sorrow at the North Gate, 23With Rihoku's name forgotten,
24And we guardsmen fed to the tigers.
代马不思越。

越禽不恋燕。

情性有所习。

土风固其然。

( 固其然一作其固然)
昔别雁门关。

今戍龙庭前。

惊沙乱海日。

飞雪迷胡天。

虮虱生虎□。

【虫几】【歇欠换鸟】
心魂逐旌旃。

苦战功不赏。

忠诚难可宣。

谁怜李飞将。

白首没三边。

忆旧游寄谯郡元参军
忆昔洛阳董糟丘，为余天津桥南造酒楼。

黄金白璧买歌笑，一醉累月轻王侯。

海内贤豪青云客，就中与君心莫逆。

回山转海不作难，倾情倒意无所惜。

我向淮南攀桂枝，君留洛北愁梦思。

不忍别，还相随。

相随迢迢访仙城，三十六曲水回萦。

一溪初入千花明，万壑度尽松风声。

银鞍金络倒平地，汉东太守来相迎。

紫阳之真人，邀我吹玉笙。

餐霞楼上动仙乐，
嘈然宛似鸾凤鸣。

袖长管催欲轻举，汉中太守醉起舞。

手持锦袍覆我身，我醉横眠枕其股。

当筵意气凌九霄，星离雨散不终朝，分飞楚关山水遥。

余既还山寻故巢，君亦归家渡渭桥。

君家严君勇貔虎，作尹并州遏戎虏。

五月相呼度太行，摧轮不道羊肠苦。

行来北凉岁月深，感君贵义轻黄金。

琼杯绮食青玉案，使我醉饱无归心。

时时出向城西曲，晋祠流水如碧玉。

浮舟弄水箫鼓鸣，微波龙鳞莎草绿。

兴来携妓恣经过，其若杨花似雪何。

红妆欲醉宜斜日，百尺清潭写翠娥。

翠娥婵娟初月辉，美人更唱舞罗衣。

清风吹歌入空去，歌曲自绕行云飞。

此时行乐难再遇，西游因献长杨赋。

北阙青云不可期，东山白首还归去。

渭桥南头一遇君，酂台之北又离群。

问余别恨知多少，落花春暮争纷纷。

言亦不可尽，
情亦不可极。

呼儿长跪缄此辞，寄君千里遥相忆。

Canto XIII
by: Ezra Pound
Kung walked
by the dynastic temple
and into the cedar grove,
and then out by the lower river,
And with him Khieu Tchi
and Tian the low speaking
And "we are unknown," said Kung,
"You will take up charioteering?
"Then you will become known,
"Or perhaps I should take up charioterring, or archery? "Or the practice of public speaking?"
And Tseu-lou said, "I would put the defences in order," And Khieu said, "If I were lord of a province
"I would put it in better order than this is."
And Tchi said, "I would prefer a small mountain temple, "With order in the observances,
with a suitable performance of the ritual,"
And Tian said, with his hand on the strings of his lute The low sounds continuing
after his hand left the strings,
And the sound went up like smoke, under the leaves, And he looked after the sound:
"The old swimming hole,
"And the boys flopping off the planks,
"Or sitting in the underbrush playing mandolins." And Kung smiled upon all of them equally.
And Thseng-sie desired to know:
"Which had answered correctly?"
And Kung said, "They have all answered correctly, "That is to say, each in his nature."
And Kung raised his cane against Yuan Jang,
Yuan Jang being his elder,
For Yuan Jang sat by the roadside pretending to
be receiving wisdom.
And Kung said
"You old fool, come out of it,
"Get up and do something useful."
And Kung said
"Respect a child's faculties
"From the moment it inhales the clear air,
"But a man of fifty who knows nothing
Is worthy of no respect."
And "When the prince has gathered about him
"All the savants and artists, his riches will be fully employed." And Kung said, and wrote on the bo leaves:
If a man have not order within him
He can not spread order about him;
And if a man have not order within him
His family will not act with due order;
And if the prince have not order within him
He can not put order in his dominions.
And Kung gave the words "order"
and "brotherly deference"
And said nothing of the "life after death."
And he said
"Anyone can run to excesses,
"It is easy to shoot past the mark,
"It is hard to stand firm in the middle."
And they said: If a man commit murder
Should his father protect him, and hide him?
And Kung said:
He should hide him.
And Kung gave his daughter to Kong-Tchang Although Kong-Tchang was in prison.
And he gave his niece to Nan-Young
although Nan-Young was out of office.
And Kung said "Wan ruled with moderation,
"In his day the State was well kept,
"And even I can remember
"A day when the historians left blanks in their writings, "I mean, for things they didn't know,
"But that time seems to be passing.
A day when the historians left blanks in their writings, But that time seems to be passing."
And Kung said, "Without character you will
"be unable to play on that instrument
"Or to execute the music fit for the Odes.
"The blossoms of the apricot
"blow from the east to the west,
"And I have tried to keep them from falling."
THE SEAFARER
(From the early Anglo-Saxon text)
1May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
2Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
3Hardship endured oft.
4Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
5Known on my keel many a care's hold,
6And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
7Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
8While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted, 9My feet were by frost benumbed.
10Chill its chains are; chafing sighs
11Hew my heart round and hunger begot
12Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
13That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
14List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
15Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
16Deprived of my kinsmen;
17Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew, 18There I heard naught save the harsh sea
19And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
20Did for my games the gannet's clamour,
21Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,
22The mews' singing all my mead-drink.
23Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern
24In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed
25With spray on his pinion.
26 Not any protector
27May make merry man faring needy.
28This he little believes, who aye in winsome life
29Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business,
30Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft
31Must bide above brine.
32Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,
33Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then
34Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now
35The heart's thought that I on high streams
36The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
37Moaneth alway my mind's lust
38That I fare forth, that I afar hence
39Seek out a foreign fastness.
40For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst,
41Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;
42Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful
43But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
44Whatever his lord will.
45He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
46Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight
47Nor any whit else save the wave's slash,
48Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.
49Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,
50Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
51All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
52The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
53On flood-ways to be far departing.
54Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
55He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
56The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not --
57He the prosperous man -- what some perform
58Where wandering them widest draweth.
59So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,
60My mood 'mid the mere-flood,
61Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.
62On earth's shelter cometh oft to me,
63Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
64Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,
65O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow
66My lord deems to me this dead life
67On loan and on land, I believe not
68That any earth-weal eternal standeth
69Save there be somewhat calamitous
70That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.
71Disease or oldness or sword-hate
72Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.
73And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after --
74Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,
75That he will work ere he pass onward,
76Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice,
77Daring ado, ...
78So that all men shall honour him after
79And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,
80Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast,
81Delight mid the doughty.
82 Days little durable,
83And all arrogance of earthen riches,
84There come now no kings nor Cæsars
85Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.
86Howe'er in mirth most magnified,
87Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,
88Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!
89Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.
90Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.
91Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
92No man at all going the earth's gait,
93But age fares against him, his face paleth,
94Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,
95Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven,
96Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,
97Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,
98Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,
99And though he strew the grave with gold,
100His born brothers, their buried bodies
101Be an unlikely treasure hoard.
Notes
1] Pound translates only the first 99 lines of the poem. His translation differs in many details from the original.
12] mere-weary: sea-weary.
17] scur: storm.
20] gannet: sea-bird.
22] mews: seagulls.
34] Nathless: nevertheless. 39] fastness: stronghold.
49] bosque: thicket, small wood. 81] doughty: brave.。